(3 of 3)
In 1946 Stalin sent him to the first session of the United Nations General As sembly at London. There, and in Manhattan later, he set the harsh debating tone of the cold war, with an unceasing flow of venomous invective directed at the U.S., its "warmongers . . . professional liars and falsifiers."
As a villain, he became the U.N.'s No. 1 crowd-puller. He brought a kind of energy to the staid U.N. and many delegates liked to cross swords with him, watch him flail the table with his fists, see the top of his head go pink with anger. Some diplomats had a certain sympathy for him, but Vishinsky never allowed sympathy to break through his guard, constantly embarrassed hosts and guests with personal attacks. "Lots of venal people dislike their work," said Britain's Soviet Specialist Edward Crankshaw. "Vishinsky was venal but happy." In the strange and somber matrix of murder, assassination, conspiracy and intrigue that has been Soviet official life in the last 30 years, Vishinsky, a man of non-proletarian origin and a onetime dissenter, not only survived, but built a brilliant career for himself.
After his death (from coronary thrombosis) was announced, his body was embalmed, put briefly on view at Russia's Park Avenue headquarters, and then flown to Moscow. There he was cremated and the urn containing his ashes was exhibited in the Hall of Columns. Later, with great pomp and panoply, it was carried to Red Square and placed in a niche in the Kremlin wall. He had died wanting 18 days to his 71st birthday, but no one, neither his U.N. colleagues nor his fellow careerists in Moscow, in eulogizing him, suggested that he had died too soon.